


Give And Take

by amberwoods



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, I just really like the idea of elain claiming her own power, Post-ACOMAF, but also fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 01:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8267774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwoods/pseuds/amberwoods
Summary: Something happened in Hybern that Elain hasn't told anyone about. However, after having spent a while in the Spring Court with Lucien, she finds herself opening up about it - and finding a safe place to rest.





	

Lucien tried to hold himself together during his last effort of the day: walking back to his rooms. He still refused to change to the master bedroom of the Spring Court. After Tamlin’s death, it felt wrong to take his place away from him like that. Even worse than replacing him as the High Lord of the Spring Court.

Besides, his own bedroom had a direct connection to the study he liked to use. Tamlin had given it to him when he first came here.

At first, he’d hated the place. It might have been the place in the house that was most like the Autumn Court. Everything was made of wood, coloured warm brown and reds and oranges and golds. And in the corner of the room, framed by two large leaning chairs of red velvet, was an enormous fireplace.

Still, he hadn’t been able to refuse it, and he’d grown to love the place. In the end, he realised Tamlin had tried to show him that it was alright that the Autumn Court was part of him too. That in the description of ‘beautiful and cutthroat’ it was the _beautiful_ that he focused on with him.

It was a little hypocritical, to be honest. Tamlin would curse the entire Autumn Court, their traditions, their attitudes, even his mother, but then turn to Lucien and say: “But not _you_ , Lucien.”

He could still hear him say it. He still heard Tamlin’s voice in his head every day.

Today had been exhausting. People weren’t all that happy with his ascension and his eye for change, and some of them tried to oppose him everywhere they could. This morning he’d visited one of his few possible allies to strengthen the friendship, just to come home to a meeting that should have been trivial, but lasted for hours and hours. At least he’d been able to avoid Elain.

Elain had insisted on staying in the Spring Court when her sisters left for Velaris. Eventually, Nesta had convinced her to come, but it took only a few weeks before she was standing on the threshold of his estate, drenched in rain, stammering that she didn’t even know how she got there. She was just thinking of home and then there was shadow and wind and stars and she was in the forest of the Spring Court.

He tried to send her back, then, but she just winnowed to the Spring Court again, frustrated but strangely relieved. She didn’t want to leave, and now she had a reason not to.

Elain kept to herself, mostly. She didn’t know what to make of her Mate or their bond. She didn’t know what to make of herself. She was clumsy, and confused, and too beautiful to be safe in Prythian. She got frustrated and didn’t understand the way the Fae treated each other, so she tried to stay away from them. Even from Lucien.

She wanted to be near him all the time, but she didn’t know him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. After all, Lucien _had_ been involved in the things that happened in Hybern.

Elain didn’t mind being immortal. She relished the powers that she had got, loved to play with them all day, strengthen them, challenge herself. She finally felt like she was strong. But she knew how the change had horrified Nesta, and the Fae had been terrifying to her ever since she could remember. She knew the Fae in the Spring Court could be vicious.

Her own Mate was from the Autumn Court, which she heard was even worse.

She didn’t think he was worse. They ate dinner together almost every night, politely conversing, and she found she was curious about him. She _wanted_ to know him. Sometimes she felt a spark of something that made her ashamed.

She had loved Graysen. Or at least she’d thought so. That’s why she felt horrible every time she realised she didn’t actually miss him.

As the weeks passed, she started to waver. She didn’t want to resist the pull to Lucien anymore.

When Lucien opened the doors to his study, he should have gone to sleep, but instead he went into his study.

The fire in the fireplace was blazing. The warm flames licked at the chimney and filled the entire room with an intense warmth. The light brought out the colours of the room’s furniture, and sent shadows dancing over the shelves of books on the walls. In front of the fire, on the floor, Elain had draped herself on the floor. She had started out holding up her head with her hand and resting her elbow on the floor, but had sunk her cheek to her upper arm at some point. She was staring at the fire.

“Elain,” Lucien uttered in surprise when he saw her. Her only reaction was a half-hearted turn of her head towards him, before putting it back as it was.

He approached her carefully. There was something about her quiet that made her feel dangerous. Not to him, maybe, but his instincts kicked in nevertheless.

She didn’t look fragile. She looked in charge of her body, her powers, the fire in the hearth. For a second, the thought crossed his mind that if she tried to winnow now, she could get herself to any place in the world.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her. When she didn’t reply, he added softly: “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“I see the Cauldron every night.”

It didn’t sound like an excuse, or even a reason. Just a statement. A secret that she was sharing with him. Lucien kept quiet and stared at her head. The fire made her hair look more golden.

“When I arrived in Velaris,” she said, “I couldn’t stop myself from asking how long I’d been in there. They thought I was disoriented.”

Elain laughed softly and turned onto her back. Lucien had a full view of her face now. It was flawless and lovely and calm, but the look in her eyes made him ache. He wanted to touch her. To hold her.

“I was in the Cauldron for hours,” Elain whispered to the ceiling.

Lucien felt horror wash over him. He took a step towards her, hesitant, and then sat down next to her on the floor. He rested his back against one of the chairs and looked at her. For the first time since he came in, she looked at him too.

“What did you see?” he asked her.

Unwanted tears welled up in her eyes, and disappeared just as quickly. He was listening to her and it filled her with a relief she couldn’t have dreamed of.

“There was a creature. I don’t remember what it looked like. I’m not even sure it had a form. Or I, for that matter.”

“Did it hurt you?”

“No,” Elain said softly, “Not in the traditional sense.”

Lucien felt something rising inside of him, filling him up to the brim, until it threatened to spill over his lips. He reached out for Elain and took hold of her under her shoulders, at her armpits. Carefully, he dragged her towards himself. She was light as a feather. He pulled her up between his legs, with her back to his chest, and wrapped his arms around her. Immediately, Elain put a hand on his arm. It was small compared to his muscles, but it still felt powerful.

Again, he was reminded she was not a normal Fae. Yet tonight, it seemed stronger. Like she had removed a lid from herself. Like she’d removed a glamour.

“What did it do?” he asked beside her ear, his chin on her shoulder.

He was warm around her, and she felt safer than she had in a long time. She felt like there was nothing outside of this room. Nothing that the light of the fire in front of them couldn’t reach.

“It taunted me, the first few hours. That’s what I see in my nightmares, mostly, when I dream of the Cauldron. But at some point…”

She grew quiet for a second. He pressed his nose into her hair carefully, patiently.

Elain started drawing small circles on his arm. In the warmth of the fire, it kept him awake. “I was done being weak,” she murmured, “I was in a place where all the powers of the universe were at my fingertips, and… Feyre said she thought Nesta had fought the Cauldron. She’d battled it, maybe for hours too, and taken more from it than it wanted to give.”

Lucien felt it again, then. The magic surging from within her, more and stronger than he had known about. Elain lifted up a hand and stared at her fingers. He could swear he saw the magic rolling off her fingertips, making the air between her fingers hover like heat.

“I didn’t have to battle the Cauldron for powers.” Elain whispered it like it was the secret of the universe. “I just convinced it to give them to me.”

Lucien wasn’t even surprised. Elain Archeron had faced the power that created life, and she had charmed it into giving her a bit of it. Elain, who could convince anyone of everything with a smile and a kind word, who could make people do as she wished without ever thinking that they weren’t in  control – she had charmed the Cauldron into making her more powerful than it ever could have planned.

He held her tighter, her elegant Fae body, no longer delicate, no longer fragile.

“You’re a miracle,” he said, and there was so much awe and adoration in his voice that Elain let out a staggering breath of relief.

She hadn’t gone as far as believe she was a monster. But she had known that what she had done, what she had become, was something unnatural. She had claimed a part of the cosmos that wasn’t supposed to be claimed, and she had hidden it ever since. She was now an important player in the balance of the world. That knowledge pressed on her, even as it motivated her to be better. To become stronger. To bend the world to her will – to peace.

But she needed… She needed someone to see her.

And as she rested her head against Lucien’s shoulder and closed her eyes, she knew that he did. She knew that only he would. He saw her as she truly was. All of her.

She could feel their bond, the tug of it keeping them in place, keeping them pressed to each other, warm, safe, together. Something had changed tonight. And she thought she would never be truly alone again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little story!


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